


Hallowed be Thy Name

by Tah the Trickster (TahTheTrickster), Xhuuya



Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: Angst, Drug Addiction, Drug Use, F/F, Medical Procedures, Medical Trauma, Panic Attacks, Religious Imagery & Symbolism, Suicidal Thoughts, Suicide Attempt, medical gore
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-12-09
Updated: 2018-07-03
Packaged: 2019-02-12 09:16:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 8
Words: 6,528
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12956106
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TahTheTrickster/pseuds/Tah%20the%20Trickster, https://archiveofourown.org/users/Xhuuya/pseuds/Xhuuya
Summary: The room erupts in a discordant symphony of shouting orders and preparing for a Code 3 critical transport and a Level I trauma.A code with no color.Dr. Ziegler, the resident doctor that calls the codes.Dr. O’Deorain, the only other doctor able to call the code, whom just bolted from the med bay.





	1. Thy Kingdom come

Angela stares absently at the wall of her bedroom. Perhaps  _ at _ the wall is an exaggeration—she stares in the wall's general direction, blue eyes hazy and unfocused. One leg she has crooked up under her, the other restlessly rocking herself in her desk chair. Gunmetal gray, she believes the color on the chair's order form read, because every- _ fucking _ -thing in a military base has to be shades of gray. Or white.

The wall she stares at—through—towards is white too, because of course it is. When she first arrived, Angela thought to purchase artwork or something to brighten the walls of her bedroom— _ anything, _ if it would add some color—but, naturally, time was a luxury, and luxuries were not something the child prodigy Angela Ziegler could afford herself.

So they stay white, and they stay white, and the furniture stays gray, and it is all too silent in the residential halls here, and it is  _ maddening. _

Angela shifts her weight forward, letting the chair's seat settle, and she bounces her knee more rapidly. Her forearms feel faintly of pins and needles, and Angela scratches thoughtlessly at them till she realizes her throat feels like a fist is clamped around it and she struggles to suck in a breath against the pressure choking her out.

_ Panic attack, _ she registers somewhere, as if the information is new and mildly interesting and not something that seems dead-set on—

"Athena," Angela speaks up suddenly, forcing herself to blink hard several times in succession. She only just drags her gaze up to the blank wall, eyes focusing for once, as the soft, comforting blue logo blinks into view on the embedded screen panels.

"Yes, Doctor Ziegler?" the AI answers finally.

Her jaw works for a long moment as she debates what to ask. The persistent buzz of tinnitus in her ears, too, is becoming maddening now. Perhaps that's what she really needs. Proper silence. Not the sound of her blood in her ears, not the eternal soft hum of the Watchpoint's electronic systems working in the walls, not the constant waiting and waiting and waiting to see whose chest cavity her hands have to be in next or whose ruined body she has to try to cobble back together—just.

Quiet.

Silence.

"Doctor?"

Angela didn't know an AI could sound  _ concerned. _

"What is the peak elevation here?" she finally responds, glossing over the artificial emotion.

If an AI could master the art of a silent, confused blink with no eyes or face, Angela feels sure Athena has it mastered, even as a small wheel on her display indicates that she's searching her records regardless. "The peak of the Rock of Gibraltar is 426 meters."

Over four hundred meters up. The very thought makes her stomach turn sharply, makes her lightheaded and giddy.

"And the highest accessible point?" The words are out of her mouth before she has the chance to process them, the question light and thoughtless.

The AI seems to hesitate, almost. "Signal Hill and the top cable car station, at 387 meters, are the easiest to access."

Angela leans back in her chair again, the dizzying sensation of vertigo splintering behind her eyes. "I didn't ask by ease of access."

"...My apologies, doctor." The room is silent—quiet—filled with the bedlam of blood in her ears and the buzz of the lights and the hum of the heating—and finally Athena speaks up again, saying, "The highest accessible point is O'Hara's Battery, which is at the peak."

Angela believes she's never wanted anything more than silence now.

She's already stitched one man back together just today.

She scrubbed her hands raw afterwards and she still feels certain the warm stickiness of his blood is trapped on her fingertips.

Not that she'd been able to the day before, when she yanked shrapnel from a man's liver.

Or the day before that, when she'd had to perform chest compressions in the field for five minutes when her comm line was scrambled.

Or the day before that, when she picked buckshot out of a woman's shoulder while she screamed.

Or the day before that—

Or the day before that—

Or—

"How long have I been here?" Angela interrupts herself, nails digging into her palms, and she wonders not for the first time if her own blood would clean her hands again.

"Here as in the watchpoint at Gibraltar?"

_ Out, damned spot. _ "Yes."

"Two years and three months."

Eight hundred days of her palms slick with viscera.

"Doctor Ziegler?"

Angela glances up from staring at her trembling hands. "Yes?"

"Are you alright?"

_ No. _ "Yes." She releases her fists at last, and is faintly satisfied at the angry red crescents gouged into her palms. "Yes," Angela says again, flexing her fingers. "I was simply considering."

"Considering?"

"Yes," Angela repeats, and once more she feels the rush of vertigo threatening to nauseate.

Four hundred meters up a sheer limestone cliff.

Her blood thrums louder in her ears, and for a moment Angela can't hear anything else, and she imagines how peaceful it would be down there, silent at the base of the cliff, and pressure coils in her chest a way she can't shake.

Silent. Silent.

"Considering, yes," Angela finds herself repeating, gaze unfocusing against that damn white wall again as she leans back in her chair. "Athena, prepare Valkyrie prototype oh-seven-three for field testing."

There is a long pause, and Angela wonders how much longer she's expected to work in these conditions.

She rubs her hands together absently, and her teeth grind at the damn slick stickiness she's sure she feels there.

Eight hundred days.

Four hundred meters.

"...Very well, Doctor Ziegler."

Silence. 

Silence.


	2. Thy will be done

_Silence._

It’s the environment Moira prefers, an immaculate mental landscape for achieving the best possible results while working.

 _Yet,_ ever since Angela started testing the her prototype’s remote system to alert the base with a deafening alarm _every single time_ someone was injured within range of the Valkyrie system, silence has been impossible.

Moira shoves away from the desk with a frustrated huff, rolling back to glare at the monitor currently screeching about someone’s vitals being _less than ideal_. She rubs her hand over the bridge of her nose and connects the information display to the glass over one of her eyes with an impatient tap of her finger, irritated that she has to be the one to take on this responsibility when Angela decides she’s going to disappear for a while.

_Really, Angela, your assessment of critical is far too forgiving. What fool took a bullet to the arm thi—_

The force with which she stands suddenly causes the chair to clatter to the ground, the sound making a few techs turn to look, only to catch a brief glance of the doctor as she sprints out the door, haphazardly tossing her lab coat over an unoccupied terminal in her haste. The wheels of her chair continue to spin long after lab door hisses open and closed for her.

A concerned buzz hums through the room as the terminal information is projected onto a main screen and multiple gasps lead to a strangled silence as the soldier injured is identified by the system.  


_Dr. Angela Ziegler._  


**_Critical Status.  
_**   


**_MEDEVAC REQUESTED._  
**   


AI Assisted 9-line As Follows:  
LINE 1 N361441W53417  
LINE 2 40.86 “BREAK” X37  
LINE 3 A1  
LINE 4 D  
LINE 5 L1  
LINE 6 P  
LINE 7 E  
LINE 8 C1  
LINE 9 (Not needed - - no contamination)  
  


The room erupts in a discordant symphony of shouting orders and preparing for a Code 3 critical transport and a Level I trauma.

A code with no color.

Dr. Ziegler, the resident doctor that calls the codes.

Dr. O’Deorain, the only other doctor able to call the code, whom just bolted from the med bay.


	3. On Earth as it is in Heaven

The artillery battery has long been mostly overtaken by nature: stone steps splintered and shattered with grass brazenly peeking up from the cracks, fencing rusted away to nearly nothing behind ever-creeping ivy, scrubby stubborn little shrubs forcing up over the concrete.

It is desolate here, not a sound in the world but that of the pulse ringing in her ears and the wind whipping up from the nearby sea. It cuts right through the thin armor of the Valkyrie—lifts her hair from the nape of her neck and nips her ears like a beckoning lover.

It is entrancing.

The actual cliffside is more accessible now than it was in the battery's heyday, Angela feels sure, and as those soft blue eyes sweep out over the cliff she feels a giddy rush of vertigo. She sways slightly, or she thinks she does at least, and steadies herself again, sucking in a deep breath of the cold, stinging air.

It's mesmerizing up here. The sun setting into the ocean lights the seas and skies in a brilliant flare of red and orange, and stars are slowly settling into the inky blackness seeping in.

Four hundred meters.

The height threatens to steal the very breath from her lungs.

Four hundred meters of sheer, jagged limestone cliff, just scant millimeters below the crumbling dust under her feet.

The Valkyrie wasn't built solely to improve her mobility. It is a work of life-saving technology. It's meant to keep her alive and in optimal condition so she can continue to perform her own duties on the field. The extent of its capabilities remain... untested.

In theory, it should work.

In practice, Angela acknowledges, gazing out at the column of fiery sunlight on the horizon as the skies darken... In practice, there is probably only so much the Valkyrie in its present form can compensate for.

The wind kisses the nape of her neck, teasing the short, fine curls it found there.

The stars stand a silent sentinel overhead.

The rush of the ocean overwhelms her spirit.

The Valkyrie  _ should _ save her.

Angela thinks for a moment to remove the halo, to keep the technology embedded within from alerting anyone needlessly, but then... the data will be useful, she supposes. She gently runs her fingers over the cool metal, thoughtful. Her... colleague could use it.  _ So tell her, with the occurrents, more and less, which have solicited. _

The Valkyrie should keep her alive.

A swell of vertigo rushes up her spine, and Angela closes her eyes to the sensation, wavering on her feet on the unstable ground.

If it doesn't, though...

_ Then the rest is silence, _ Angela thinks, giddy with the sensation of open air before and below her.

The ocean beckons her forward.

The wind kisses her cheeks.

The ground rushes up to embrace her.


	4. Give us this day our daily bread

Moira has never so immediately mentally shut down.

The nanites churning in her system protest the overuse of her phasing ability to move faster, but she can’t be bothered to pay attention to the way her skin is turning a sickly shade of purple in response, veins burning blue lines into pallid skin that’s quickly losing body heat, suffocating in the same way she would be if she could remember to  _ just breathe  _ in the first place. 

_ Why did you dwell on such heights, Angela?  _

The glass feeding her information from the Valkyrie system is set to guide her to Angela’s location, a blinking signal that she keeps centered in front of her even if she has to push herself more to phase through the terrain. She has no time to consider alternative routes with the system screaming the constant reminder that Angela’s vitals are critical, declining, unstable. 

Angela is dying.

The coordinates are familiar: the Rock of Gibraltar, the pinnacle point of the island, the place at which Moira can recall with precise detail the way Angela stood silhouetted in the sunset, shielding herself from Moira’s gaze as she smoked and spoke at length in a soft voice that left her absolutely stunned.

If there is any one person that could save Dr. Ziegler, it is her. 

It can  _ only  _ be her.

_ Did the impregnable rocks have the answers you sought? _

The impatient, demanding voice of rationality is already trying to draft the lecture Moira would give her for this stunt. It was easier to be angry, easier to think of a verbal lashing— _ Angela, stupidity is not a right— _ easier to think of _ anything else. _

The voice does absolutely nothing to help her move when she arrives at Angela’s location, hands clenching into fists as she finally takes a ragged breath, exhaling in a quiet, broken sob as her mind furiously attempts to work through too much input. 

_ Did you think this view of the stars would make it all worth it? _

Angela’s back is bowed over a small boulder a few feet up a gradual incline, that sacramental skeleton of the Valkyrie keeping her shattered body together. 

One of Angela’s wings lies in a twisted heap at Moira’s feet as she surveys the area for a way to get up to her. Pieces of shattered hardlight litter the area, flickering, reflecting the kaleidoscope of color as the evening sun dips below the horizon. It mocks her for running out so unprepared, a silent mockery as she realizes how quickly she’s losing the light she needs to make any sort of assessment.

_ Focus. _

She radios the base through another tap on the glass, even as she desperately tries to read all the critical alerts and vital lines spiking and dipping across her vision, even as she climbs to Angela’s side. As much as phasing would be easier, it's far too unpredictable for the precise movements and footing necessary for rock climbing.

“Dr. O’Deorain to base, Division Omega, stand-by for priority medical incident report. Requesting frequency be cleared for emergency traffic.”

It doesn’t take long for her to get to Angela and her breathing has settled by the time she lowers herself to her knees, hands over her, but she hesitates more than she would like, chewing at her lip as she considers.

“Go ahead, Dr. O’Deorain.”

“Patient Dr. Angela Ziegler. Initiate trauma code 99, of which I will preside as lead physician, code red 2, urgent, immediate need for evac.”

Moira leans her head down over her chest just in time for Angela to turn her head, coughing thick globs of blackish blood onto the rocks.

“Patient is semi-conscious and breathing—” Angela’s sharp, gurgled inhale makes Moira look up, switching her focus away from her glass and coinciding physical assessment to search for the source of the humming sound in the background, willing the craft she knows is following her location to fly faster, “—with difficulty.”

“Injuries concurrent with fall from extreme height. Severe lacerations, massive internal bleeding likely, severely elevated heart rate, multiple broken bones, though no compound breaks noted, cannot assess further with Valkyrie armor system still equipped. Prep trauma team for—” Moira glances at the way the bastard halo has dug into the flesh in Angela’s face, hidden in part by the bruising and blood pouring over other injuries, “—probable surgical removal.”

Moira ruminates every rule about moving a patient with neck and spine injuries, but decides that rules are hers to break as the attending physician to this case. 

_ Forgive me, Angel. _

When Moira moves Angela, there is no fight, no resistance, and she feels strangely light draped over her arms. _Adrenaline, Moira,_ the useless voice reminds her. Though consciousness briefly flickered in those blue eyes gilt purple with blood, it all but extinguishes with the new and unfathomable amounts of pain she creates trying to move her. Moira feels a chill creep beneath her skin and repeats her oath like a supplication that might give her warmth where there is none.

Moira cradles her nonetheless, clutching at the fragile form in her lap. For all the blood and bruising, from her shattered hands to her bloodsoaked ribs, Moira despises how serene the look on her face is. Angela's never looked like this a day in her life, Moira knows that better than anyone, yet broken and ruined on her lap now, blood dripping down her cheek from the brier of jagged metal crowning her, Moira feels sure that Michelangelo himself couldn't have sculpted a more tranquil martyr, nor a more grievous pietà.

Moira wishes briefly, selfishly, that there was any sign of agony on her angel's face. Anything that might betray that Angela hadn't wanted  _ this. _

The blinding searchlight on the hovercraft scans around the corner and lands on them after a quick few passes, the warm air of the engines vibrating around them and whipping dust into small clouds. It pushes strands of hair into Moira’s face, interrupting her thoughts as she chokes back another strangled sound. The extent of the injuries are illuminated by the light: the way blood makes Angela’s pale blond hair stick together in a sickly crimson that also stains the surrounding rocks, the way dark bruises splatter across fair skin. It takes effort for Moira to swallow the lump in her throat as still-hot blood drips off her forearms.

The craft hovers within reach, so that Moira can pass Angela onto a waiting stretcher within the large door that slides open as the craft descends. The medic waiting within quickly straps a c-collar around Angela’s neck before jumping out of Moira’s way when she steps up into the craft. She doesn’t need to tell them to go; the craft tilts back towards base before the hatch even finishes closing again. 

Moira kneels at Angela’s side, motioning for gloves that are quickly passed to her as another medic continues chest decompressions. She tears away the tattered cloth of her uniform and places a needle thoracostomy on Angela’s right side. Once she hears the hiss of air through the catheter placed in the space above her third rib, giving her the indication that she’s at least reduced the fatal pressure building in her chest for now, Moira sits back to take a less rushed assessment. 

“What’s our ETA?” she yells over the thrum of the engines, delicately pressing her fingers against different patches of Angela’s skin, careful to avoid the shredded areas before she’s sterile.

“Ten minutes until landing, Dr. O’Deorain,” the pilot yells back. “Trauma team is prepped and ready. Code 99 is in effect, other surgeons are on the way to support you. All operations on base have been suspended until Dr. Ziegler’s condition is stable.”

_ If she can be stabilized. _

_ No. _

_ I will make damn sure that she lives. _


	5. And forgive us our trespasses

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> content warning: this chapter touches lightly on drug use/addiction, tread lightly if that's a trigger of yours

Angela hadn’t intended for them both to be up there a month before.

After a series of failed experiments escalates into a near-breakdown, Angela excuses herself from her lab and hastily leaves the medical wing, not even bothering to alert Moira to her whereabouts.

The cool afternoon air is a shock to her senses, and Angela has the presence of mind then to recognize that she needs a serious amount of space to calm down. Nobody needs to see how poorly she’s doing.

So up the battered path she treks, not stopping till the cool air seats her lungs and her knees tremble with exhaustion. Then, finally, Angela allows herself rest, settling on a nearby outcropping with her cigarettes and matchbook. Smoking while breathless is a moronic thing to do and she knows it, but—well. She needs the break. She needs the silence.

The pill bottle marked “Ibuprofen” weighs heavily in her jacket pocket. She needs one about now. She shouldn’t  _ take _ one, but she desperately wants one. She drums her fingers anxiously on the bottle. Everything is too fucking loud. It would help.

She really shouldn’t.

She dry-swallows it anyway.

She’s two cigarettes in—working on her third—mind finally blissfully silent—when approaching footsteps up the trail have her hastily dashing her cigarette into the dirt and grinding it out under her heel.

When Moira rounds the corner, hands tucked comfortably in her blazer pockets over her high-collared sweater, though, Angela relaxes with a little huff. “Doctor Ziegler,” Moira drawls, approaching with her usual long, languid strides.

“Skip it,” Angela says bluntly, frowning as she picks up her cigarette carton again. “I’m not in the mood.”

Moira quirks a perfectly-manicured brow. “In the mood for  _ what? _ ” Angela shoots her a warning glance. Moira tuts. “C’mon mucker, what’s the story?”

“Not in the mood,” Angela repeats firmly, struggling to light her match with frigid, dazed fingers.

Moira shrugs, a neutral expression on her face. “As you wish.” She warily sits next to Angela on the filthy outcropping and holds out a hand, beckoning for a cigarette with two fingers. Angela is irked by the motion, but places a menthol between her fingers nonetheless. When the cigarette is secured between her lips, Moira gestures again.

Angela can’t hold back her temper then, slapping the matchbook into her palm. “Didn’t bring your own of either? Rather unprepared of you,  _ Doctor _ ,” she huffs.

Moira raises a brow at the outburst, idly lighting her cigarette and shaking the match out. “You and I smoke the same brand,” she points out. She takes a slow, even drag. “I knew you’d have both out here already. Wasn’t any point in me bringing my own.”

Angela’s pride stings. That feels like an accusation. Moira doesn’t even glance at her, busying herself with her stolen cigarette.

Even now, feeling somehow not quite in her own body, Angela stares as Moira relishes in her smoke. She’s always hated that Moira is able to look so attractive with such foul a habit. It makes sense, she supposes; Moira always looks devastatingly handsome no matter what she’s doing. Watching her soft, pale lips tighten around the cigarette, those long, thin fingers gracefully flicking the ash aside—there’s an art in the way Moira smokes, and it is equal parts fascinating and infuriating.

Moira finally glances aside at her, peering through her long lashes. “Long week?”

It takes Angela a moment to realize she’s being addressed. “What?”

“You don’t usually smoke this much unless it’s been a bad week.” She nods at the spent cigarettes on the ground in front of her—still fresh, still new.

Angela looks a bit like a deer in headlights, she feels sure. Moira is courteous enough not to mention it as Angela looks away and takes a lengthy drag from the one in her hand.

“It’s been a long week for most of us,” Moira adds with a shrug. “Red tape’s been a bloody nightmare for me of late. Paperwork for days.” She takes a moment to take a long, nonchalant inhale. Her tone doesn’t change. “Jack’s starting to ask me if I think we should get a proper therapist on-site. We have a  _ lot _ of soldiers at the watchpoint on Xanax, don’t we, Doctor Ziegler?”

Angela freezes, fingers tightening on her cigarette. The bottle marked “Ibuprofen” weighs heavily in her pocket.

“Yes,” she says finally, numbly. “Yes, I suppose we do.”

Moira flicks her cigarette with her usual grace, leaning forward to rest her elbows on her knees. “And the sheer number of  _ injuries _ we have to deal with? I’m starting to think it merits increasing our medical staff here—I mean, the poor bloke who had his tooth cracked in training recently, you remember him?” She scuffs out a stray ember on the ground with her heel, still the picture of composure. “But I’m sure he’s feeling just fine these days. Vicodin is a  _ hell _ of a drug.”

Angela trembles just slightly. “Stop it,” she whispers, her voice cracking just enough to keep the words inaudible.

“But then, I suppose you know that,” Moira adds mildly, dragging her gaze up to meet Angela’s, lifting a brow. “Your man last month found that out the hard way, eh? That Valium oughta help out his withdrawal symptoms—”

“ _ Stop it! _ ” Angela spits out, snapping to her feet. Shame clusters in her throat, hot and painful, threatening to choke her out, but she doesn't dare let it show. Her trembling worsens. “If you had any issue with—with how I see fit to treat my patients, you should’ve—”

Her mistake is in the accusing gesture she makes in Moira’s direction. The bottle shakes in her coat, loud, damning.

Moira’s eyes narrow to slits, snapping down to her pocket. Angela is too addled to stop her from jerking to her feet and snatching the bottle out. Angela lunges for it, too slow, too late, and Moira wrenches her back by her jacket lapel.

“So what is  _ this, _ exactly?” she snarls, shaking the bottle in Angela’s face. “Have you lost your mind altogether, Angela?”

“It’s Ibuprofen,” Angela spits back, grabbing for it again. Moira’s grip on the bottle doesn’t budge. “For  _ headaches _ .” And then, because Angela can’t resist the sarcasm, she adds, “Says so on the bottle.”

Moira’s brows jump incredulously. “Do you think I’m  _ stupid? _ ” She shakes the bottle again, taunting. “ _ Ibuprofen _ doesn’t come in bloody  _ half-milligram _ doses, Angela.”

The shame in her throat is palpable, and it creeps higher as Moira coldly stares her down, pricking in the corners of her eyes. Moira's gaze softens nearly imperceptibly as a damp sheen crosses Angela's weary blue eyes, already tired beyond her years. Her grip loosens enough for Angela to take the pill bottle back, her knuckles white as she clutches it in one hand like a lifeline.

Moira, for all her bitterness and anger, is kind when she needs to be. She is kind enough now to stay silent as Angela turns away from her, silhouetted against the setting sun, wrapping her arms tightly around herself as she struggles to pull herself together.

But her kindness only lasts so long.

"This is a federal offense in nearly every country globally," Moira says finally, sighing as she rests her hands on her hips. Her gaze turns upwards as if in supplication, praying silently for strength, or patience, or understanding. "But you already know that, don't you?"

Angela doesn't reply for a long moment. Moira simply waits.

"I just wanted to  _ sleep, _ " Angela finally says, her voice small. She rocks on her heels, unsteady, uncertain. "I don't have the time to do even that. Everyone's watching me all the time and I can't let them down, and everything's just  _ so _ fucking loud all the time, and I just..." She trails off with a dry sob, or perhaps a laugh, and Moira has the courtesy to look away as she presses her fingertips  _ hard _ against her lips. Angela struggles for words for far too long, and she's not sure it's the Valium to blame for it. "...I don't know how much longer I can do this," she whispers finally.

Angela isn't sure she's ever known Moira to be so silent for so long. Eventually she works up the nerve to turn slightly, only to find Moira staring at her with a morbid sort of fear, her face far paler than normal.

"How much longer you can do  _ what, _ exactly?" Moira asks, cautious.

Angela rocks back on her heels again, her grip tightening around the pill bottle. Her eyes are hazy, unfocused, gazing somewhere far beyond the horizon.

" _ Angela, _ " Moira interrupts sharply, wrenching her around by the shoulder, tipping her chin up to meet her gaze nearly furious with concern. "How much longer you can do  _ what? _ "

Angela doesn't have an answer to give her.


	6. As we forgive those who trespass against us

There is no machine-gun staccato of sounds when they rush Angela into the trauma center, no emergency sirens wailing, no doors slamming, no ridiculous shouting for this or that STAT; there is a somber silence of concentration and layers of concealed concern. The trauma center is a biome within an efficient medical ecosystem.

A few medics from the party currently admitting the patient break away to give their detailed report to Athena and the scribe assisting her before the rest of the team arrives. Elsewhere in the packed room, there are doctors still arriving, silently putting scrubs over street clothes as they sign in and read over the most up-to-date report Athena provides to their holopads. 

An anesthesiologist doesn’t even finish tucking his shirt in all the way as he moves to prep tubing and machines, a phlebotomist looks like she just arrived from the theatre, hair curling in tight spirals over her dark blue uniform, and a nurse stands to the side to finish her quick bite of dinner, knowing full well they all won’t eat for hours and she can’t afford a break in concentration due to hunger.

_ You have wagered your sin against death, Angela, and I am here to make sure you don't lose. _

The only sound when Moira steps into the room is the machinery that’s been prepped in advance of their arrival. Angela’s broken body is transferred onto the table from the stretcher without a sound as Moira begins, manipulating the team into an organized sort of chaos. Communication moves the room through action rather than voice, even as she cuts the terse silence with her assessment and instructions.

Moira stands, hands curled into tight fists at her hips as she tries to bite back the emotional bile threatening to compromise her job, successfully shutting out the internal voice for the time being. There is absolutely no one that would question her judgement at this point, in this room, right now, everyone understands that her voice is the only one that matters in the end. It is the only thing beyond the patient that they have any sense of.

_ You will not abandon me to the realm of the dead after forcing me to watch your decay. _

Moira betrays no emotion when she began her full-body assessment. She continues to feel nothing when attending physicians cut away scraps of Angela’s armor with large scissors, nothing when the nurse reports the results of the manual vitals as another gets the wrist and antecubital IVs set and flowing, nothing when they crank open Angela’s jaw to intubate her, nothing when they drench Angela’s insides with contrast dye for their CT scan, nothing when she turns her head to read the emergent imaging and x-rays that appear on the screens around her after each process is completed.

There is nothing but the hollow shell that locks away the weeping and gnashing of teeth at the sight of her fallen angel.

She loses track how many times she hears the piercing keen of asystole, loses track of how many times her fingers dip into blood that boils between shattered bone, loses track of each command she gives just to drag Angela back from Hell.

_ How could you fail to see that you weren’t alone in seeking that blissful silence? _

_ You were never alone. _


	7. And lead us not into temptation

Angela is dying.

Rather, she's fairly sure she's dying.

She's mostly in and out of consciousness, so she can't be wholly certain of what her prognosis is, but the fragments of memory she clutches for are either split seconds of indescribable agony or longer lulls of drowsy, confused sedation. Whatever she's on, she supposes it's heavier than the typical Vicodin. Her limbs are too heavy to move, or perhaps they too were shattered in the fall to respond. Her eyelids are entirely too heavy for her to lift to check. She's not sure she'd want to check even if she could.

She didn't die from the fall. Angela is cognizant enough to recognize at least that. She didn't die then, but she's fairly confident that she will now. The beeping and humming and scratching of the medical equipment surrounding her isn't encouraging, after all, nor are the occasional terms she snatches from the clips of conversations over her head that she's awake enough to make sense of.

Pulmonary hemorrhage.

Shattered pelvis.

Possible paralysis, if she lives through it all.

It all sounds a lot like she's going to die. She should be panicking, she thinks. All the articles she'd read about suicide back in her university days said that suicide survivors were all eventually deeply grateful that the attempts had failed. That they realized mid-attempt that they were terrified of death, and couldn't go through with it.

But Angela just feels numb.

Not in the medicated sense, either. Or rather, not  _ only _ in the medicated sense—she's most certainly under some heavy anesthesia.

All she feels now is cold and empty, in the fleeting moments in which she feels anything at all.

Angela wonders morbidly if it's telling that all she can muster up is a hollow sense of achievement that her project kept her alive, rather than gratitude or relief. She's actually done something that turned out as intended. Grand.

She's still alive. For now.

Still overburdened with the responsibility of thousands of lives.

Still a prestigious doctor with a drug problem.

It's been some years since Angela attended a synagogue with any regularity. It is still with some amount of regret that she recognizes that Overwatch has no chevra kadisha among their many sub-organizations. There was no one to guard her in life, and there will be no one to guard her in death.

She wonders if anyone will mourn.


	8. But deliver us from evil

_ Focus. _

_ Focus. _

When Moira wakes, it is unceremonious, abrupt in the darkness, without movement, without a sound, eyes simply opening to see the fan blades whirring overhead. Sweat prickles against her skin, sticking to the leather of the couch, cooling as quickly as the commands still clawing at her throat. She makes no motion aside from a brief glance at the soft blue light of the watch on her wrist, another 15 minutes gone, a far stretch from REM. Sleep continues to be elusive at best.

_ Read through the medical notes again.  _

_ The heart of the discerning acquires knowledge in the night.  _

Not even thick trouser socks stop the snap of cold when she swings her legs off the side onto the wood flooring, and when she hugs her arms around her waist, her frigid hands don’t feel any good pressed protectively against the skin exposed by her open oxford shirt. The tie dangling beneath the now only semi-starched collar feels a lot more like a convenient noose.

Early morning in the late fall makes her question the gross lack of insulation in these giant military sheds that they call dormitories. Ice forms in the corner the large window and she swears she sees a bit of her breath cloud in the crisp air inside—though that could very well be due to her affinity for keeping it quite cold in her room—she wonders if it has anything to do with the way the deep blue lines continue to creep up her right arm.

The pack of cigarettes resting in her breast pocket is crushed, but she finds that some are still intact when she tips one into her palm, the uncharacteristic tremor in her hands nearly knocking it from of her grasp.  She snaps it between her fingers halfway to her lips, cursing and throwing the crumbling pieces to the floor as she stands. She abandons the habit in favor of the alternative of caffeine, but it takes her shaking hands far longer than normal to button her shirt to any amount of appropriate modesty.

_ You told me once about the Psalms. _

_ Through the valley of the shadow of death, fearing nothing of evil. _

_ You said you might like to bear your weight on the wings of mercy. _

_ Looks like mercy has gone and failed you. _

She can’t remember how long she’s had this shirt on, but she doesn’t swap it with another. Her sterile surgical gown had stopped the blood from splashing it, but she still imagines the way crimson would mix with navy to make a brilliant shade of purple.  _ Damn intrusive thoughts, now she would have to go buy a purple shirt just to ease the curiosity. _

When she finally ventures out, those still awake for graveyard shifts don’t to talk to her, and if they notice the shirt—or the way her tie still hangs loose beneath her collar, or the way her ungelled hair falls into her face, or the way bruises are starting to form beneath her eyes, or any number of other things—they’re smart enough not to say anything.

The angry beep of Athena’s system rejecting her access doesn’t register the first two scans, and it takes her until the third try to realize that the cool glass no longer feels that way on her palm. She lowers her head to watch the red light blink through pallid skin. Instead of focusing on the fact that her nails seem to have doubled in length overnight, or the way the skin stretches unusually over elongated fingers, or how she has failed to notice all these things until now, she addresses the AI, “Athena?”   


“Yes, Dr. O’Deorain?” The system replies pleasantly, as though it’s not currently rejecting her access into the mess hall of all places.    
  
“Could you kindly remind me of my clearance?” Moira taps an aggressively impatient finger on the security scanner, counting her breaths in time with the sound.   
  
“Moira O’Deorain, current head of genetic research and development, attending physician, Top Secret Clearance.”    
  
“ _ Grand _ . Now, could you please fix your programming then, to reflect said clearance?” 

“Dr. O’Deorain, there is additional scarring that did not exist when you originally set your hand scan. Would you like me to rescan and authorize based on current information?”   
  
_ Tsk.  _ Moira stops the scathing reply resting on her tongue, realizing it’s foolish to be so upset by an AI system only doing what it was built to do. She lifts her right hand, turning it over to visually trace the new lines of scarring across her palm and creeping down her forearm. “Replace my scan with my left hand. It appears that my right hand may continue to be a problem in future authorizations.”

“Understood. Initializing scan now.” 

The reauthorization doesn’t take that long, but by the time she finally makes her way over to the espresso machine, she’s lost the desire for it. If being honest with herself, coffee wasn’t her thought when she stormed away from the dorm.

She’s not entirely sure she’s had a coherent thought since the 37 hour surgery, and even those memories are a bit fuzzy towards the end.  

As much as she tries to push them from her mind, the sensations follow her, haunt her, corrupt her active state of perception into a blurred montage of moments that she can barely remember. She still feels trapped in that room; the beep of the trauma center machines continues in troubled dreams, in rare minutes of restless sleep, and occasionally in waking as well. The hum of the artificial climate, therapeutic hypothermia, seeps deep under her skin and makes her feel feverish when she can’t warm herself all these hours later. Antiseptic appears to be soaked just as deep into her skin, assaulting her sense of smell at all times, and making it impossible to eat or drink anything without it tasting like a mouthful of gauze.

_ But. _

_ Angela is alive. _

_ Medicated mercy in sleep, blissfully ignorant of the nightmare that is life. _

_ But alive. _

However, that might be the first diagnosis that Moira has ever questioned.


End file.
